Is the vulnerable adult learner capable of learning?
The kook, an ancient surf creature who has manifested many different ways throughout the decades. I re-watched the original 1991 Point Break, last night, for the first time in a while. Johnny Utah’s kook, him going to the surf shop and buying a ’57 Chevy then nearly drowning at Huntington Beach then participating in a hearty game of night football, basically core lord by today’s standards.
The floor has truly dropped right out.
The modern kook, an adult learner with zero knowledge nor care to understand surf history or etiquette. A man so unaware as to think rules, in the lineup, is “gate-keeping” and, therefore, cancelled. A woman so clueless as to think waves are for everyone.
Thus, the scene is set.
This mid-morning, I paddled out to a fine enough wave with a serious kook problem. Now, I rarely surf here, as the assault on the senses becomes much too much, but this mid-morning, the swell was building, wind already getting on it, plus it was my second surf back after a devastating ankle injury.
And it was not overly crowded. The staple leashless longboarder, bearded with a pretend soul arch was out as were a small handful of inside sitters. The sun was shining. Water still relatively warm. And so I paddled out with low expectations but caught a fun-adjacent one directly. Enough oomph to flex that devastated ankle against the board and not feel the yips that have been haunting.
On the paddle back out, a 30-year-old man wearing a surf bucket hat, face smeared Mark Zuckerberg white with sunscreen, ditched his 8-foot black soft-top directly in front of me. The “set wave,” if it could be called such, not bigger than shoulder high.
Upon surfacing, I shouted, “If you can’t control your board, you should head in.” He did not respond so I repeated, louder, “Don’t ditch your stupid board.” Without looking back, he shouted, “Ok, douche.” Perplexed, I parlayed, “Hey!” getting him to turn his Zuckerberg face my way and continued, “I’m not the kook who can’t hold on to his stupid soft-top.”
He did not return fire though paddled well south to where no waves were actually breaking.
Out the back, I pondered heading his way and discussing his Zuckerberg face and bucket hat, as I failed to mention the first time around, but thought better and merely caught one more warbly thing and felt good enough to quit for the day.
And here came the stunner.
Do Kooks Actually Learn?
I stood on the beach, for a moment, then headed up to the parking lot, watching conditions deteriorate but also watching swell fill in. Walled burgers closing out in temperate hell. There were now multiple kooks in the lineup. I watched one girl ditch her faux wood Firewire funboard directly into the face of another girl on a thruster soft-top replete with nose-mounted GoPro who also just so happened to ditch hers.
Both should have been destroyed but faux wood Firewire and soft-top thruster, unfortunately, unbreakable.
Kook soup.
And then I spotted my nemesis. He was still well too far south but getting cleaned right up. I waited for his bail but it did not come. He gamely slid off his monstrosity, gripping those dense foam rails with both hands for dear life, and got drug for yards. It took him a hot minute to remount, after adjusting his bucket cap, right in time for another whitewash wall to menace him. Again, he held onto his board with as much strength as a pharmaceutical sales rep could muster, not daring let it go.
I was amazed and stood longer, watching him grasp his horror with chonky digits, refusing to give in, through another three sets and felt very amazed. His struggle real though soft-top held tight. This kook, at least today, did not want to acknowledge any sort of lesson but actually appeared to have learned one.
Peace in our time?
Have you experienced any kook learning?
Please share.
